At 7:52 a.m. on May 20, 1927, Lindbergh took off in his plane, “The Spirit of St. Louis,” barely clearing the trees surrounding Roosevelt Field in New York, and with two canteens of water, five sandwiches, 450 gallons of gasoline in five separate tanks, no windshield in his plane, only two small side windows and a periscope from which to see ----- he headed east towards France.